Asandir’s leashed austerity broke before a smile of revealing warmth. ‘My need is far less.’ He unwound long fingers from the leather rein and clasped hers in their place with a moth touch that promised the endurance of mountains. ‘There will be strayed Alliance war mounts trailing their bridles and hanging themselves up in thickets. There I can borrow without hardship. Let my thanks be the more for your care of me, lady. Carry my blessing with your people, and pass on my regards to your caithdein.’
He left her then without fanfare, a reticent figure who fared forth on foot, mantled in forbidding solitude. His presence claimed no grandeur. The formal blue cloak with its loomed silver ribbon stayed bundled inside the rolled blanket he carried slung over his shoulder. His long strides bore him into the deepwood with the unconscious grace of the king stag. Nor did he look back as the grandame waved him on his way in farewell.
Already his restless thoughts bent toward Mainmere. For stark necessity, another word of thanks he owed the reigning clan duchess there must be deferred to blind haste. The spawned horrors of Mirthlvain would wait for no niceties. Shepherds on the Radmoore downs would see their flocks slaughtered if the seasonal migration from the mire was not swiftly curtailed.
Asandir quickened pace. Harried as he measured the hours he had lost in oblivious communion with the trees, he knew he must raise the power of the lane with the utmost dispatch and transfer his presence out of Tysan.
The first winter snows rimed the roads when the Alliance courier bearing word back from Caithwood reached the seat of state government at Avenor. Gace Steward gave the shivering, chilled rider a weasel’s darting inspection, asked once, and was shown an authentic set of seals from the supply officer stationed at Watercross.
‘Come along.’ A discerning intelligence lurked behind the royal house steward’s furtive, quick carriage. He snapped narrow fingers for the servants to open the door wider. Against the scream of raw wind and the stream of the wax lights set in the sconces by the entry, he beckoned the tired courier inside. ‘Follow me. His Grace of the Light is at light supper with his Lord Commander, Erdane’s resident delegate, and eight city ministers of trade, but for news out of Taerlin, I promise you’ll have his ear.’
Too weary to have scraped the mud and rime from his boots, even had time been given, the courier directed his stumbling step down the carpet that paved the wide hallway. The chink of his spurs cast thin echoes off the vaulted ceiling, and his cloak slapped, wet, at his ankles. His impression of gilt-trimmed opulence framed too great a contrast, after his weeks of enduring chapping gusts off the river and reeling, long hours ahorse on roads choked in wet snow and darkness. A liveried servant pattered ahead and flung open the door to the banquet hall. The light flooded outward, too bright, and packed with a heat of perfumes and rich sauces. Noise rolled into the corridor, a barrage of argumentative voices fit to stagger the exhausted courier where he stood.
Gace Steward’s clever grip set him steady. ‘Just wait. I’ll have you inside for your audience straightaway.’ As if the prospect of injecting disaster into the scene’s rampant discord amused him, he plowed like an eel through the close-press of Avenor’s shouting dignitaries.
On the sanctuary of the raised dais, only two men held their tempers in check. The Prince of the Light sat with his elegant, ringed fingers lightly curled on the stem of his wineglass. The other hand lay flat on the damask tablecloth, stilled amid a spread of gleaming cutlery and food that had not yet been touched. He wore no diamonds. A doublet roped with gold and white pearls hazed his outline in the glow of soft light, a display of pale magnificence artfully set off by the indigo tapestry hung behind his gilt chair. Beside him, dark panther to his bright grace, the Lord Commander, Sulfin Evend, leaned against a pilaster with his narrow hands hooked through the bronze-studded harness of his baldric.
Once a captain at arms in the Hanshire guard, he had eyes like poured ice water, a square jaw, thin lips, and a ruthless penchant for analysis that posed even the event of light supper as a mapped-out strategy of war. His whetted vigilance encompassed the room. Through the cadence of the servants who refilled carafes and platters, his slitted gaze noted Gace Steward’s furtive entry with the infallible assessment of a predator.
He unfolded crossed arms, bent, and spoke a word to the Exalted Prince.
Lysaer showed no change of expression. Intent and possessed of a monumental calm, he continued to listen as the current complainant shot to his feet, jewels sparking to his purpled state of fury.
‘… there’s no recourse and no redress! Every galley sent southward through Havish with slave oarsmen gets struck helpless by Fellowship sorcery!’
Hats jerked, feathers trembled, and vintage wine sloshed in its calyx of crystal as the uneasy company grumbled and muttered, engrossed in remonstrance for recent infamy. Angry sentences broke through the hubbub like the crack of stone shot through a hailstorm.
‘We can’t extradite the prisoners!’ The exasperated consonants of Lord Eilish, Minister of the Royal Treasury, spattered through the grim background of noise. ‘Yes, it’s the same damned numskull policy men bled to throw down with the uprising. Yes, we already tried. There’s no chance for ransom.’
His woolly head snagged in the turmoil like fleece off a peasant’s card, Avenor’s seneschal stabbed a harried finger and reviewed the core problem yet again to quell a latecomer’s uninformed temerity. ‘Word came through under High King Eldir’s seal just this morning. His Grace has freed the chained slaves from the benches. He won’t negotiate. Every officer and captain caught in breach of charter law will face his tribunal and be indicted under Havish’s Crown Justice.’
‘Sail’s no help at all!’ pealed an importunate voice. ‘Every laden vessel to strike out across Mainmere gets waylaid by barbarian pirates!’
More caustic, the delegate from Erdane slammed down his fist; cutlery and pastries jumped and resettled to a clashing complaint from fine porcelain. ‘Such marauding is done in hulls stolen from us! They’ve been outfitted with weapons and trained crews by hell’s minion! Arithon s’Ffalenn is the plaguing curse that’s gutting the marrow of our trade!’
Profits were being eaten alive by clan pests crying vengeance for kinfolk, branded and chained at the oar. Sweating in ermine too dense for the heat, the minister of the glass guild at last hurled the gauntlet. ‘What is your vaunted Alliance of Light doing to cap the bleeding breach?’
‘What’s being done? The crown seneschal hurled back, the stringy wattles of his neck creased by his massive chains of office. ‘Answer me this! Just why would we have four companies of crack Etarrans maintained at Alliance expense, given arms and standing orders to burn the clan dens out of Caithwood?’
Against that broil of seething, high temper, Gace Steward wormed onto the dais. Lord Commander Sulfin Evend straightened and met him. Tiercel pale eyes glinted like turned steel as he heard the man’s breathy, fast message.
‘News!’ he cracked over the burgeoning noise. ‘A courier’s brought word back from Watercross.’
The Prince of the Light pushed back his chair. He stood up, his grace like subtle, poured light before his less polished guests and court ministers. At his movement, the baying complainants faltered. Shamed by the calm in his steady blue gaze, they shuffled aside and made way for the courier.
His travel-stained cloak and mud-splashed boots screamed disaster the instant he entered. His stumbling step raised a jolting clangor of roweled spurs through the delicate chink of state jewelry. The last